I remember when a client said, “This is the best ad anyone has ever created for us.” Who needs awards when you have client praise like that? OK, we don’t need awards, but we aren’t going to turn them down when offered either! That would be impolite.

For the second year in a row, work created by J.W.Morton & Associates on behalf of UnityPoint Health/St. Luke’s Hospital is receiving recognition. Advertising for St. Luke’s Urgent Care recently won one gold award and one silver award in the 2013 Aster Awards, which recognizes outstanding excellence in healthcare advertising. The competition brings in nearly 3,000 entries annually from across the U.S., Canada and South America.

But wait, there’s more… J.W.Morton’s work for UnityPoint also won an Advertising Merit Award in another competition, the Healthcare Advertising Awards, sponsored by Healthcare Marketing Report newspaper. There were 4,000 entries in that competition.

The Objectives

St. Luke’s came to us with three main objectives:

1. Generate awareness and increase patient traffic (by 10%) to locations in Cedar Rapids and Marion.
2. Drive patient traffic to the page on St. Luke’s website that gives urgent care wait times.
3. Educate target audience on when to use Urgent Care vs. Emergency Room Care.

The Challenges

• St. Luke’s Urgent Care traffic was lagging.
• People were holding back on getting care, waiting too long to see a doctor.
• Coming to urgent care for the wrong reasons, confusion over when to use Urgent Care vs. Emergency Room.
• Competitive market.

The Solution

We created an ad campaign with easily understood messages:

• Who comes to Urgent Care, and why? (Increase the size of the pie.)
• Overcome the mental barriers about Urgent Care usage: it’s OK to come for the “little” things.
• Choose St. Luke’s. We have online wait times and call ahead seating to get seen as soon as possible.

 
Our Team
The award-winning advertising is the work of Kevin Northway, senior art director; Kim Ketelsen, writer/producer; Scott Appleget, senior account manager; Lydia Sax, media specialist; and Dave Morton, president, marketing services. Marketing Healthcare Today Magazine and Creative Images, Inc. host the annual competition.

Here’s their reaction to receiving the awards:

“In a cluttered marketplace with numerous healthcare options, it was a challenge to position St. Luke’s Urgent Care and to educate people to use their services. By keeping it simple and making the creative distinctly different from other messaging in this category, we produced a campaign which had a measurably positive effect for our client. The awards are icing on the cake.”
–Kim Ketelsen, Writer-Producer

“My goal is to create advertising that everyday people can identify with on some level. I do my best to create engaging, and believable, marketing for St Luke’s.”
–Kevin Northway, Senior Art Director

“The campaign was effective in addressing each of the problems outlined by the client. Urgent Care visits climbed 61 percent over the course of the campaign. Once again, simple and straightforward messaging made a difference in connecting with our target audience. A strong media strategy provided good frequency to be sure the message was received.”
–Scott Appleget, Senior Account Manager